Saturday, August 16, 2014

Shih Ming-teh

It is not easy to say what justice is, but about the injustice of people can recognize it instantly.

On the evening of February 27, 1947, in Taipei, Taiwan, a team sent by the Tobacco Monopoly Bureau came to a corner of the road which is now the Nanjing West. They seized the cigarettes sold by Lin Jiang-mai, a 40-year-old widow, and confiscated all the money from her work for several years. The woman begged her money to be returned. When she tried to defend her property, one of the officers slammed the butt of his gun to her head. The neighbor who witnessed it immediately besieged people of the Tobacco Monopoly Bureau. The officers fled, while shooting. A neighbor was killed.

The next day, the protests exploded. Crowds of angry people, especially the indigenous people of Formosa, visited the office of governor-general Chen Yi, deputy government of the Republic of China in Taiwan during the rule of Kuomintang Party. They sued the Tobacco Monopoly Bureau agents who committed violence last night arrested. But security forces greeted them with gunfire. The victims fell - an event that would later be remembered as the "228 Incident", the beginning of the first widespread resistance in Taiwanese history.

Government offices, even military bases seized. Outside of Taipei, what was happening was like a rebellion. The banks and post offices were looted. Some rebels seized the weapons from army warehouses in Taichung and Pingtung. Taiwanese people seemed dissatisfaction against the government of Republic of China, whose authoritarian so intense and felt in various forms, from the tobacco trade problem monopolized by the State to the absence of free elections and autonomy. The demands brought to the government starting from the soft to the loudest.

Answer from Chiang Kaishek's government which at that time was centered in mainland China were iron and blood. General Chen Yi prepared the forces in Fujian Province. On March 8, 1947, the troops landed in Taiwan and held a major cleanup. A few days later, March 29, 1947, The New York Times quoted an eyewitness: during the three days of the Republic of China forces satisfied themselves by killing, indulged in three days of killing. Taiwanese activists claimed the death toll reached 4,000. Other figures put the toll at less than 1000. Whatever the number, it does not mean there is no violence and oppression - two things that are easily forgotten.

Among those who could not forget it was a six year old child. Nearly two decades later, he became opponent for power which curb Taiwan: Shih Ming-teh. He was arrested because he founded the Taiwan Independence League. In the age of 21 years, he was sentenced to life, despite his imprisonment later commuted to 15 years. He was released in June 16, 1977.

In one of his writings that I find it recently -- in manuscript form in English, completed on August 22, 1989 -- he told how in one day in the month of February 1947 he witnessed three school children were killed by Chinese army bullets when they trying to survive in Kaohsiung Train Station.

The incident can be taught to anyone, especially Shih, about two cases: First, that feeling tyrannized can be so clear, while justice has not been formulated. A total of 32 charges filed by the dissidents to Chiang Kaishek. Not all forever know and an understanding of what is "fair", including three school children who were ready to die for it.

Second, "That every time there is a dissident fall," Shih said, "another line of inexhaustible will replace it".

Just when he's free for two years, he organized a large meeting demanding democracy - that of course being bullied again. That's what came to be called Meilitao incident on December 10, 1979. Having tried to escape, Shih was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment. When the Kuomintang authoritarian regime abolished the martial law, he was released - although he refused amnesty. In May 1990 Shih became a free man after a total of 25 years locked in prison.

What makes him so?

His writing, on his own, shows a man who is proud to firmness, and here and there followed by pleasure to all the applause for him. But at the same time he found the metaphor of life - and he found it in plants and bonsai trees which accompanied him during his confinement. He, who at first did not like cycads, finally saw the other. "Together with cactus, " Shih said, "The plants are able to survive on arid land, and they grow upright in a graceful way. They do not be embarrassed because they do not have the appearance and beautiful flower. They are "bad and prickly", but seem to "hide many strange things, and really have character and integrity."

How Shih saw it showed that metaphor was a mirror selected by humans of this nature in the language. There they saw their own lives. And Shih saw it in small living objects. Presumably this means that when a greater life -- life with of justice -- can't always be explained, there is always a moment where justice -- which always evasive -- is present and the more meaningful. In other words, even though justice is never total and complete, it can be shared with the living -- from moment to moment -- which fights for it.
***

CZ

"Thank you for your perception! I like your romantic side, even if I do not always comment and I'm glad that you're in my circle of friends."(Courtesies by: Wolfgang A. Gerhardt)

Wolfgang A.Gerhardt : May be you like this Sunday collage

Cisca Zarmansyah : Before today, there never was a person doing this to me. You create a simple matter to look special. This is a special thing for me.

Cisca Zarmansyah : Thank you. I love it. I love you, my friend. ♥

CieL- FreYa Ceastle : Hmm, he's so nice...

"I am me.
In all the world,
there is no one else exactly like me.
Everything that comes out of me
is authentically mine,
because I alone chose it --
I own everything about me:
my body,
my feelings,
my mouth,
my voice,
all my actions,
whether they be to others or myself.
I own my fantasies,
my dreams,
my hopes,
my fears.
I own my triumphs and successes,
all my failures and mistakes.
Because I own all of me,
I can become intimately acquainted with me.
By so doing,
I can love me
and be friendly with all my parts.
I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me,
and other aspects that I do not know
-- but as long as I am friendly
and loving to myself,
I can courageously and hopefully
look for solutions
to the puzzles and ways
to find out more about me.
However I look and sound,
whatever I say and do,
and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time
is authentically me.
If later some parts of how I looked,
sounded,
thought,
and felt
turn out to be unfitting,
I can discard that which is unfitting,
keep the rest,
and invent something new
for that which I discarded.
I can see,
hear,
feel,
think,
say, and do.
I have the tools to survive,
to be close to others,
to be productive,
and to make sense
and order out of the world of people
and things outside of me.
I own me,
and therefore,
I can engineer me.
I am me,
and I am okay."

VIRGINIA SATIR
(American Phychologist and Educator, 1916-1988)

About Me

"When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent. I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent. I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out. I was not a trade unionist. When they came for the Jews, I remained silent. I wasn't a Jew. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out." - Martin Niemöller